2 Corinthians 13:11

. . . Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. 

Philippians 2:2

…then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 

Luke 6:27–28

“But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. 

Jonah 2:2–10

He said: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.

“. . . not until he was all the way down, finally stripped of his own buoyant self-sufficiency, was deliverance possible.” 

-- Peter Craigie

The usual place to learn the greatest secrets of God’s grace is at the bottom.

Jonah 2:6–9

But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord.”

Jonah 2:10

And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

“[T]he preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” 

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We need a God of justice, in order to appreciate and comprehend a God of grace. 

Jonah 2:3

You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, 

We have no power to fix what is spiritually broken in us.

Jonah 2:6

To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever.

The power of grace only resonates if we have come to such an admission, that we cannot possibly save ourselves.

No human heart will learn its sinfulness and impotence by being told it is sinful. It will have to be shown—often in brutal experience. No human heart will dare to believe in such free, costly grace unless it is the only hope.

--Tim Keller

God’s grace that is free to us, cost him greatly.

We are sinners, unable to save ourselves and able to be saved only through extreme and costly measures. 

Jonah 2:6

To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God.